Crackdown on Copenhagen
Helicopters. Danish Police. UN Security. EVERYWHERE.
Most of the SustainUS delegation are currently inside the Bella Center, where the UN climate change negotiations, COP-15, have been taking place despite increasing limits on civil society involvement at the talks.
Outside, the Reclaim Power march reportedly has 5,000 or so marchers headed towards the Bella Center. Accredited NGOs Friends of the Earth, AVAAZ, and TckTckTck have had their accreditation suspended and were removed from the Bella Center. This may be related to a peaceful demonstration that was carried out in the Bella Center yesterday without the approval of the UNFCCC Secretariat, but the details are unclear.
Meanwhile, some folks leaving the Bella Center reportedly have been arrested pre-emptively in case they are planing to join the Reclaim Power protest. And there’s rumor that the Youth Convergence space, a workspace for accredited youth outside of the Bella Center, has been visited/raided/??? by the Danish Police. What!?
I don’t know what is going on, but this is all ridiculous.
The Youth Convergence space wasn’t raided. The Danish police came through to check out what was going on there, but they didn’t stay very long, didn’t come back, and didn’t say anything negative. I assume it helped that everything going on there was both legal and kind of boring (meetings, mostly).